Josiah Spode set up his pottery on this Stoke site in 1774 and went on to perfect bone china — the form that defined English fine ceramics for the next two centuries. The factory closed in 2008, but the site has been preserved and partly reopened as the Spode Works Visitor Centre, with a museum, a heritage trail, the Spode China Halls, and a clutch of artist studios occupying the old workshops.
The museum displays the most extensive collection of Spode pottery in the world, including the original Blue Italian pattern that has been in continuous production since 1816. The site itself is the main attraction — you walk past abandoned bottle kilns, kiln yards, and warehouse buildings on cobbled streets that look much as they did in Wedgwood's day. It is rougher around the edges than the Wedgwood site, and the more interesting for it.